By Jean Christou
IT may be World Tourism Day, but more than 40 Cypriot hotels are not celebrating. They have losses totalling £400,000 after the collapse of a UK- based tour operator on Friday.
And elsewhere, some Tourism Day messages included an exchange of barbs over differences, rather than statements of total co-operation and harmony.
The collapse of Dayrise Holidays, a small Cypriot-owned operator, has left 42 of the island’s hotels with total debts of £400,000, according to local agents Memodays.
The company specialised in selling packages to Greece and Cyprus and its customers were yesterday being warned to contact the British Civil Aviation Authority for advice.
Those already abroad were told that they could continue their holidays and be covered by the company’s £1m bond.
According to Louis Marangos of Memodays, Dayrise have around 1,000 tourists on the island at the moment who were brought in on charter flight s from Gatwick and Manchester. “Everyone will be able to finish their holidays,” Marangos said.
He said, however, that some hoteliers in Ayia Napa, Protaras and Paphos will be owed money, but described it as a “small loss” which they will be able to reclaim from the travel bond. He said most of the hotels had been prepaid and that the company had contributed substantial amounts in revenue to the tourism sector in the past.
Some of those involved in the tourism sector yesterday issued their own statements for World Tourism Day, the theme of which is “working co- operation between the public and private sector as the key to tourism development and promotion”.
While all sides called for co-operation they were apparently unable to resist a reference to their own particular gripes.
In its statement yesterday, the Hoteliers Association said the main way of developing tourism is to secure the spirit of co-operation.
“But so far it has been proven that this spirit doesn’t exist,” the association said, referring to the relationship between the private and public sectors. “However, to avoid generalising we have to say that in the last few years there has been admirable co-operation between local authorities in some areas and we hope that this is followed by other areas.”
The unions, following brief strike action, recently reached an agreement with hoteliers to secure industrial peace in the sector for the next four years. In a statement yesterday said yesterday they said that all involved parties have to show responsibility and respect for the agreement “which without a doubt was made only to keep alive and healthy the goose that lays the golden egg”.
The Cyprus Tourism Organisation, in its message, said that one teaching period in all schools on one day would be devoted to tourism.
